Everything we do takes time, but the greater the quality of our endeavor, the less the quantity of time it consumes. Yom Kippur, which brings us in touch with our deepest, most essential self, occupies less than 0.3 percent of the year.

If making kiddush and listening to the shofar enhances our relationship with G‑d—as we believe all mitzvot do—why the strict time limitation? Is it not the thought, and the desire to connect, that count more than all else?

"Creation" (beriah, in the Hebrew), which means bringing something into being out of a prior state of non-existence, implies a "before" and "after"; so to say that G-d created anything is also to say that He first (or simultaneously) created time...